How Naruto Ended Up Working for the Mob
by Lunahras
Summary: ...and Sasuke by extension. For, as much as the hidden villages prided themselves in their security, there was one massive, overly simple flaw everywhere that they never thought about. Well, at least those who didn't need to know. Alternatively titled "Storage Scrolls and their Many Uses - Vol I: Smuggling"
1. One

Konoha, for all the trees that practically swamped it, had very few fruit trees in public places. Those that did bear fruit were usually, for some reason he couldn't fathom, infested with worms (and as hungry as he was, he wasn't _that_ desperate). That left the heavily guarded fields at the outskirts of town — or the trees on private property.

Now, Naruto knew stealing fruit from another person's plant was technically illegal, but he couldn't help it that cup ramen, the cheapest food in the store, cost so despairingly much - and that he couldn't ask old man Hokage for more money because he was too busy and the receptionist didn't like him (that one stunt with the pens and the lipstick probably hadn't helped his case either, but oh well).

And that's how he found himself running from a barking dog in the middle of the night with his arms full of probably red apples - he couldn't really see them well in the dark but he was pretty sure they weren't green. Now he just needed to get home and feast.

Naruto, of course, being the biggest prankster in all of Konoha (and regularly needing to escape the murderous hands of his victims), knew his way through the back-alleys of the village better than anyone, and he most certainly intended to use this knowledge to get to his apartment as soon as possible. But as he turned another shadowed corner, he immediately ducked back.

There were two people standing in the alley.

This wasn't really what concerned him, as, had they been normal citizens, he would just have bolted past them. No, the real problem was that one of them was a ninja, the moonlight reflecting off his hitai-ate.

Naruto didn't have a good history with ninja, no matter how many times he'd managed to avoid them in his escapades.

So he waited and hoped that they would go away soon. The two men talked quietly so he couldn't quite make out what they were saying, but the civilian sounded rather insistent. As he peeked past the corner, his eyes caught the white object the ninja had just pulled out of his pocket. A scroll. He opened it and formed a hand sign with his free hand.

A cloud of white smoke suddenly appeared out of nowhere and Naruto yelped in surprise, immediately ducking back into the relative safety of the corner. A moment passed, then he released the breath he'd been holding and turned to walk back the way he came from.

But before he could take a single step, a large hand fell heavily on his shoulder and Naruto could have sworn his heart stopped beating.

"Hey, kid," a man addressed him, his voice raspy and laced with irritation, "Come with me, will ya?"

The blond could only nod shakily as he was led out of the alley and into the deserted street. They walked for a while before the man's other hand suddenly covered his eyes as they made a few sharp turns. Before he could even think of protesting, however, the hand retreated and he squinted against the sudden light of the small room he found himself in.

"Hey, Boss!" the man called, still holding firmly onto his shoulder, "I've somethin' for ya!"

From another room came a gruff yell, "Would you stop calling me that?! I swear, Shun, sometimes-"

The new arrival cut himself off as he entered the room and took in the sight before him. This gave Naruto enough time to look at him properly before he succumbed to utter panic. The man was tall and lean, with sharp eyes, a short beard and dark red hair pulled up into the messiest ponytail he had ever seen. Aside from the bandages on his forearms, the long pipe he held in his hand and a pair of old sandals, the only thing he seemed to be wearing was a long red and gold kimono, that had probably seen better days.

To Naruto, he looked intimidating enough - and the dark stare he was pinning him down with didn't reassure him in the slightest.

He had just wanted some apples.

0 0 0

Murikata Rafu considered this a rather amusing situation.

The kid, he knew, was Uzumaki Naruto, local jichuuriki and suspected long lost son of the Yondaime (not that he'd ever say any of those out loud. He valued his life, thank you very much). He was also fidgeting uncomfortably, as if he wasn't used to standing still and keeping quiet for such a long time, a couple of apples clutched tightly to his chest.

"I caught 'im eavesdropping on a trade." said Shun, clearly disgruntled at having to keep the kid in line.

Ah, so that's why.

Usually, eavesdroppers were dealt with swiftly and cleanly. But, well, this wasn't exactly usual. Since no one knew what would happen if a jinchuuriki died with the beast still inside - and no one really wanted to find out, lest they have another tragedy to bitch about for the next ten years, - getting rid of the kid was out of the question.

What to do, what to do…

He snorted as he noticed something else, "Hey Shun." the other man looked at him expectantly and he tapped a finger against his forehead, lips quirking in amusement.

Shun looked confused for a moment before he jumped in realization, hands landing on his hitai-ate and swiftly slipping it off his head, "Gak! I forgot to take it off again!"

Rafu snorted again and shook his head, looking back at the kid, "Oi, gaki." Naruto, whose attention had been taken by the overreacting man, immediately looked at him. Rafu gave the apples in his arms a pointed stare, "Why were you stealing food?"

The look Naruto gave him was priceless, "I-I didn't steal these! I b-bought them!"

Rafu raised an unimpressed eyebrow, "It's almost midnight, kid. Nobody selling fruit this late that I know of." The kid continued to gape, much to his amusement, "I'd figured the Hokage was giving you enough money to keep you alive." The last part was intoned almost like a question.

The child's shoulders slumped, " Jiji is, but… 's not enough… food's expensive…" he muttered before he realized he was talking to some stranger, "W-what's it to you?" he asked with a distrustful glare. "I'm not sharing!"

Rafu just looked at him and burst out laughing. When he calmed down, he perused the kid one more time. Well, if you can't kill 'em…

"How about I offer you a job, eh kid?" at his dumbfounded stare he decided to elaborate, "You're in the academy, right? So you know how to mould chakra?"

Naruto nodded numbly.

"Then we're all set." he said with a wry smile.

Shun ran a hand down his face, "You've gotta be kiddin' me…" he looked up, irritation clear in his every feature, "And what exactly do ya have in mind for him?"

Rafu shrugged, "Cataloguing? Deliveries? I don't really know. Can't just let him go, though, so show him the ropes."

"Of course it would be me," he muttered darkly and sighed, "Fine. _Fine_."

The taller man smirked, "I knew I could count on you, Shun."

"Don't! Just… don't."

"W-wait!" Naruto interjected, "I haven't even accepted yet!"

"Ya don't have much of a choice, brat." he motioned for Naruto to follow him as he left the room and, with one last look at the still smirking man, he went after him.

0 0 0

"What did you do to my tongue?" Naruto asked still feeling that annoying tingling in his mouth that just wouldn't. Go. Away.

The heavily scarred woman didn't even deign to look back as they walked through a poorly lit tunnel, "Stop whining, kid. It's just a secrecy seal. So if you ever feel like talking about…" she made a vague, all-encompassing motion with her arms, "…all _this_ with anyone uninvolved, you'll just turn mute."

Naruto blanched and she snorted derisively, "Not permanently, kid."

Getting over his scare, he frowned, "I've got a name, ya know."

"And I don't care."

Naruto's frown deepened but he decided to drop the matter. Every single person he'd met here was absolutely rude, but no one had glared at him in sheer hatred yet. That was an improvement in his books.

"Say Nee-chan, where are we going?"

The woman recoiled, as if struck, "N-nee-!?" and turned to stare at him, one eye twitching, before turning back and speeding up her pace. "….you have no idea what you're doing here, do you?"

Naruto scratched the back of his head sheepishly even as he tried to keep up with her, "Uh, not really. This scary guy said he'd give me a job for some reason and asked me about chakra but he didn't really say anything else."

"Rafu, you bastard…" she sighed in aggravation, "And Shun?" A look of confusion. Another sigh. "The guy who brought you to me."

"Oh. He didn't say anything either."

"Leave it to those two to dump the new brat with me. Okay kid, listen up. The building you were just at, these tunnels and certain other places all belong to a certain coalition of groups. It's where we trade. Nobody that doesn't need to know is aware that these even exist - and we'd prefer to keep it that way."

"Why?"

"Do you know what the trade is, kid?"

"Uh, some kind of job that you learn or something, I think."

She snorted, "Yeah, sure. That's the legal version. What we call _the trade_ , however, is, well, pretty much smuggling."

His face scrunched up, "Isn't that, like, sneaking stuff in?"

"Illegal 'stuff', yeah."

"Why?"

She shrugged, "Hey, money has to come from somewhere. And I ain't gonna starve if I can just do this."

Well, he really couldn't fault her for that. Not when he'd been stealing apples just an hour ago. And anyway, this couldn't be too bad.

"So my job is to… smuggle stuff in?"

"Noooot quite. Most of the things we trade with are rather expensive so no one's trusting you to deliver any time soon."

"Then wha-"

"Let me explain it like this," she interrupted, "People who want something that they can't get by legal means come to us. Or, well, to a proxy. We try to track down these things and buy them, bring them in here, sort them, proof them, then sell them to the client. It's a hell of a lot more organized than civilian black markets and more efficient, too."

Naruto frowned in thought, "But if all this stuff is illegal, wouldn't it get caught at the gates?"

She glanced at him with just the tiniest bit of surprise in her eyes, "You've actually got a good head on your shoulders, huh? Wouldn't have known. Color me impressed kid." she snickered at the light blush dusting his cheeks and the wide eyes, "Well, we don't get caught. Ever heard of storage scrolls?"

"I think so."

"See kid, storage scrolls are the best kept secret in all of Konoha. Ninja carry them all the time and no one bothers to look inside. People just assume things, and have been doing it for generations to the point that it has never occurred to anyone that maybe, just maybe, those scrolls don't have weapons in them and that just maybe, not all ninja of the village are upstanding citizens. It's a blanket of security no one's ever bothered to look past.

"There's also the fact they can be made to look like any other normal scroll, so really, anyone able to mould the slightest bit of chakra can get whatever they want into Konoha."

"So why doesn't everyone do it?"

"Same problem. The government thinks that no one would and the people think that they'd get caught."

Just as he was about to ask another question, they entered a rather big hall filled with shelves containing all manner of objects.

"And this is where you come in."

0 0 0

Cataloguing, as it turned out, was a dreadfully boring task. But this was his job now, along with a few other kids and some adults who seemed equally bored. Aside of these people, there had been something like guards posted around the room.

' _To make sure you don't swipe a crown or two.'_ , the woman had claimed, who, he now realized, had never given him her name.

After she had shown him the ropes (and realized that his mathematical skillset was close to nonexistent), she had promptly dumped him on one of his new work companions.

His name was Kou and he apparently really did not want to spend his time teaching a brat basic math and several kanji because his education had been sabotaged.

But he did it anyway, grumbling all the way.

An entire week passed in which Naruto was shown exactly what kind of products they were dealing with here. He barely ever left the hall because there was always something new needing documentation.

Throughout that week, Kou seemed to warm up to him the slightest bit, if only because the kid's learning speed was astonishing when he put his mind to it (and being told that he was in fact way below average of his age group in terms of education seemed to be motivation enough).

But, energetic Uzumaki that he was, he knew he was going to explode soon if he didn't get out of here and moved. Fortunately, Shun came to pick him up by the end of the week, even if he was no less disgruntled than he had been before.

"C'mon kid. If you don't show up on the surface soon, people'll actually start to wonder where ya went."

Naruto gratefully followed him out through the tunnel and up until they reached sun and fresh air.

"Finally! Thank you, Shun!" he shouted as he ran off to Kami knew where.

Shun just stood there for a moment before turning the other way and walking towards the Hokage tower to get himself a mission. He did have a cover to keep, after all.

Naruto on the other hand, had absolutely forgotten that he had missed a week of class when he headed towards the academy, seeing as it was early morning, and was taken completely by surprise when Iruka started scolding him the moment he caught sight of him.

His first instinct was to blame it on Shun and the scary man, but when nothing came out of his mouth he remembered the secrecy seal and instead opted for a likely excuse.

"I was sick, Iruka-sensei! It's not my fault!"

At that, Iruka let the matter drop and Naruto sighed in relief as he went to sit down. No one spared him a second glance.

Of course, it didn't occur to anyone that Naruto couldn't get sick.


	2. Does

In a way, the Trade was the criminal underworld of Konoha.

Nothing like the Yakuza that plagued so many of the southern towns in the Land of Fire. No, they weren't that obvious, not in a ninja village.

In fact, they didn't exist at all.

It could be chalked up to the sense of security and general control that Konoha citizens used as their little safety blanket, yes. It was peaceful enough on the surface. As peaceful as it _could_ get, at least.

But fact of the matter was, in a place where paranoia during peaceful times was the norm, ignoring said paranoia in their supposedly safe hometown was an incredibly commonplace practice. People needed a place to truly rest themselves if they were to keep the last remains of their sanity after all.

And that tended to translate into absolute faith in the village's security against outside forces. A faith which was truthfully fully warranted.

After all, the threat came from the inside. The place no one _wanted_ to suspect.

It was almost impossible to get involved with the Trade on your own, really. No, there wasn't a criminal underworld in the bowels of Konoha. What are you thinking? Came back from a high-stakes mission? You're being paranoid. You're always paranoid, so how about a drink?

So truly, Shun have expected to be stuck on babysitting duty when he'd slipped up and let the village's _jinchuuriki_ , of all people, eavesdrop on a Trade. Really, his rather violent and soap opera worthy breakup should not have affected him enough not to sense the fucking beacon of chakra that was Uzumaki fucking Naruto until the brat had already seen too much.

But it did. And he had. And now he was stuck with babysitting duty.

That didn't mean he couldn't pass it along when Rafu wasn't looking, though.

Unfortunately, after that whole week he'd left the brat in cataloging, Rafu had been looking all too often.

"Don't leave him alone like that too often, Shun. He could mean trouble."

That's what the bastard had said, fucking bastard. And of course he'd answered with an acidly sarcastic "Yes, Boss." Which had Rafu screaming down the hall he'd run off to the moment the word left his lips in that vengefully amusing way he always did.

"Don't fucking call me that!"

So the guy could ruin his life in a thousand different ways without lifting a finger. Who cared. It was the small things that mattered. Shun preferred his revenge in gourmet portions anyway.

And so we come right back to the brat.

"But cataloging is _boring_!"

One day, he thought as his jaw clenched, his nerves would be ground into dust, and that was the day Konoha would find out just _what exactly_ happened if you killed a jinchuuriki with the beast still inside.

"Brat," he managed to get out from behind gritted teeth, "You spent half the time down there _learning_."

Naruto huffed in an ostentatious way that perfectly masked the insecurity he still felt towards both him and Rafu, "Well, it's not my fault I couldn't read the stupid labels or the inventory, is it?"

Shun opened his mouth, closed it, and thought back to his short talk with Kou. No, no it really wasn't the kid's fault. He absorbed knowledge like a sponge, but until now, he'd had barely anything to absorb.

Sometimes he wondered if the academy teachers were just that stupid. Here they had Konoha's biggest potential weapon ready to be shaped and sharpened while they were still somewhat weakened from the Kyuubi attack, even after a decade. And what did they do?

They sabotaged his fucking education.

If that wasn't sheer stupidity he didn't know what it was (but then again, he'd already lost his faith in humanity so he really shouldn't be surprised).

Shun sighed. Might as well. "Fine." He was going to regret this, he could already see it in those stupidly sparkly eyes. "Delivery, then. Nothing big. I'll leave you with the other kids who do small deliveries."

Naruto blinked, then frowned. The other kids at the storage hall hadn't really been much fun to talk to. Probably due to the fact that they barely talked at all. But maybe that was just because they'd been stuck down there for too long. Not enough sun, he decided. Though it didn't explain why Kou had gotten more amiable towards him as they'd approached the end of the week. It was an honestly baffling development, but not one he didn't welcome.

Sure, other kids. He'd do fine.

It turned out, the other kids welcomed him with open arms, even as Shun somehow disappeared from the immediate vicinity. How did he _do_ that?

"Oi oi, what's this. Those ain't the usual fare." one of them pointed out his clothes, an older boy by the looks of it, "You look like one of those ninja wannabes."

Naruto blushed and was at a bit of a loss. The remark wasn't a new one, and yet the tone hadn't been angry or mocking, just plain curious.

"I'm in the academy."

Cue lots of wide eyes and not quite silent whispers. The boy tilted his head, "Academy, huh? What'cha doing here then? You're gonna be a ninja, right? Those get paid small fortunes, I've heard."

Naruto scratched the back of his head, "Uhh, I was kinda forced into this? I eavesdropped on a... a Trade?, " because there was a capital T there, he knew that, "It was an accident though!"

Somehow, the eyes got wider and the sudden lack of visible lids was a bit worrying.

"And you're alive?!"

Naruto startled, unreasonably prompted to stare at his hand for a moment, then look back up, "...I am."

And then, of all things, laughter cut through the building tension. It came from another boy, also older, with almost purplish, black hair and a face covered in freckles. When the boy finally calmed down, he slung an arm over his shoulders with a crooked grin.

"Well, either some god really likes you or karma's gonna be a bitch for the rest of your life. But hey, you're alive! The name's Aian. Yours?"

"Uhm, Naruto."

Aian's face turned carefully blank. "Do your parents really like ramen or something?"

"I love ramen!" Because hell yeah, ramen! But also, "I... dunno 'bout my parents though. I don't have any..."

The older boy looked him over, then slapped his back in a rather painful manner that was probably meant to be a friendly pat. Probably.

"Well then, you'll fit right in!"

And as Naruto followed the small group of kids dressed in rags and tatters and with eyes that shone with more mischief than innocence, for the first time in his life, he felt right at home.

0 0 0

Naruto opened up rather quickly to their little group. He didn't really get to deliver anything yet, because apparently that required a certain manner of 'delicacy' he did not yet posses, but they were showing him how things were done for when, you know, he did get to deliver something.

He usually met them after class, since he couldn't really miss class every day, always at a different place because they were also supposed to teach him how to get around Konoha's underbelly, apparently.

And somehow, at some point, they found out about his little overpricing issue.

"Wait wait wait wait. You get _how much_ a month?!" Naruto was about to repeat the sum, rather annoyed that he had to at all, but was cut off when Aian just continued, "And you barely survive on cup ramen every month?!"

" _Yes_. Are you deaf or something?" he huffed.

Aian smacked him absentmindedly, with his typical muttered remark of "Respect your elders, brat." as he seemed to be in deep thought. He eyed Naruto with a frown and then the rest of the group, who were just watching the whole situation develop with mixed exasperation and amusement and something else he couldn't quite read into.

"Naruto, you do know those aren't the normal prices for cup ramen. Or for anything else, really."

"...they aren't?"

Aian seemed to weigh his options before speaking again, "You could feed the whole group for two weeks with that kind of money, three if we ration, and still have some left over. They're ripping you off."

Naruto was silent for a moment, staring the ground like it held all the secrets of the universe. And he looked up with a determined scowl.

"Then I will."

Aian blinked. The kids blinked. It felt like the whole world blinked.

"...what?"

"Well, not- not all of it, but... but... you can get normal prices, right? So I give you my money, you buy the stuff I need and the rest you can keep for the month."

All the blinking was starting to unnerve him so he did the only thing he did when he was nervous.

He grinned.

"How about it?"

"...we could rip you off too, you know."

The smile widened, brightened, "But you won't."

They didn't know what to say, so they didn't say anything.

It did work, they found out after two weeks. And for quite a time after that.

And the increasingly open smiles he got for it were worth it.

0 0 0

The other kids taught him lots of things.

They taught him how to make wallets and purses disappear from their owner's reach. They taught him how to merge with the mass of people going through their daily motions. They taught him about the backalleys and shortcuts even he didn't know. They taught him how to use the freaking storage scrolls.

And, after his disastrous first delivery, they taught him how to cope.

He'd freaked out. He'd been excited for his first job, picked up the scroll and waited at midnight at the designated spot.

The man that had come to meet him... something had been off. Too much fidgeting, fingernails broken, eyes too bright, shifty gaze.

And then he'd attacked out of nowhere.

No kunai, no blade, no even a rock. Just cracked fingernails, shaky, unyielding fingers and a manic sort of desperation that did not belong on the sane.

And something, something ingrained in his very genes, something he'd been taught for months, sabotaged as it may be, suddenly clicked.

When he opened his eyes, his hand's slippery hold on his practice kunai loosened even as bright eyes turned dull and something fell to the ground with a distant thump in his suddenly numb world. He stood up absently and walked back to the nearest entrance to the tunnel system, his feet finding their way back to where he'd received the scroll.

At some point, he heard some muffled curses spoken in a painfully familiar voice. He tried to focus on it.

"...ruto! What happened? Why are you covered in blood? Naruto! Dammit, someone send a cleanup crew to his meeting place! You. You know where it was, right? I don't fucking care I'm a just a kid, just do it! Naruto! Answer me, dammit!"

A vague sense of recognition surfaced withing him, "Aian..."

"He speaks!" he said in a tone that was more desperate than sarcastic, "What happened?!"

Naruto slowly turned to look at the hand holding the scroll.

"Aian... what was I delivering?"

The older boy looked increasingly confused, "Y-you..." then he took a look at the scroll, at the green decorative swirls around the edges, and a sense of horrified realization built up within him as he looked away, unable to meet his eyes.

"Drugs."

'Ah.' He thought absently. So that's what it was. That's why... Naruto wasn't sheltered. He had never had anyone to shelter him from the world. He was just a bit naïve sometimes.

He had a distant feeling that wouldn't survive much longer.

"Why do you do this, Aian?" he looked up, not even feeling his lips move, "Why do we do this?"

"We've got nothing else."

They had nothing else. And Naruto couldn't leave. Not just the threats, that wasn't it.

He couldn't leave them alone, these wretched kids that had somehow against all odds accepted him.

So he cried as Aian held him in thin arms that seemed so strong, so tested by the world. He sobbed as he was brought to the rest of the group. He retreated into himself as they took care of him for days.

He wouldn't leave them.

And if he had to become wretched himself in order to stay, then so be it.

0 0 0

"So the guy couldn't pay, got desperate, attacked you and you killed him out of self-defense. That about it?"

With clenched fists, suppressed nausea and a chipper smile plastered on his face, Naruto replied, "Yup! That's it."

 _Just grin. Smile. Keep smiling. Smile until it feels real. That's what you've been doing up until now. That's what you'll keep doing. Smile and bear it. You can hurl in private. When no one's looking. But they're looking now. Smile._

Rafu eyed him up, brow slightly furrowed and somehow much less terrifying now than he'd appeared a mere day ago. Huh.

"First, huh? Well, you _are_ trying to become a ninja, it was only a matter of time. This is too fucking young, though, but as long as you don't become the next Itachi I guess I don't have any right to apologize." He sighed heavily, exhaling a trail of smoke, then looked him in the eyes, "You okay?"

At that his smile faltered, but he kept it up nonetheless. "Yeah!"

Rafu clearly didn't believe him, but left it at that with a snort, "Don't hurt yourself, kid."

It was probably the undertone of concern in his voice that prompted Naruto to treat him with any manner of respect. What had Shun called him again? Ah, yes.

"I won't, Boss."

Rafu choked on the smoke from his pipe, in parts irate and frustrated, as Shun smirked from the corner of the room he was standing in.

Yes, he thought to himself. It was the small things that mattered.

* * *

AN:

i didnt plan for it to get this dark. i didnt plan for any of this. at all. this chapter wrote itself. the story is progressing way too fast. oh man


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